VP nominee Tim Kaine urges voters to trust Hillary Clinton

The Hyde Amendment, the budget rider that has banned most Medicaid funding for abortion, turned 40 this year. This would force those who object to abortion to contribute to what we believe would be government-funded killing, and it would eradicate policies that have already saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Platforms are sometimes ignored, but they are hard-fought outlines of each party’s character and often signal a party’s future trajectory.

The proposed platform stated: “We will continue to oppose-and seek to overturn-federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment”. But news of Clinton’s freshly minted running mate didn’t outrage abortion rights groups.

Dunham, of course, was careful to couch that notion in the typical pro-abortion “women’s rights” phraseology – which makes her declaration worse.

A commitment to religious liberty in the context of abortion, which was included in the 2012 platform, has been removed. It called for making abortion “less necessary” and “more rare”. In a 2015 CNN poll, Democrats’ views on abortion ranged across: “legal under any circumstances” (48 percent), “legal under most circumstances” (19 percent), “legal under certain circumstances” (22 percent) and “illegal in all circumstances” (9 percent). The Democrats should reverse course and remove opposition to Hyde from their platform.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., listens as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a campaign rally at Florida International University Panther Arena in Miami on Saturday. “Two pro-lifers contacted me on Facebook”, Day said.

But abortion is increasingly deemed a health-care issue by Democratic leaders, not a moral issue.

There is reason for the confusion as Kaine has tried to have it both ways on abortion. In the key states of OH and Pennsylvania, for example, Democrats held the majority of seats until Republicans were able to associate the Affordable Care Act with “the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade”.

Marjorie Dannenfelser is the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life political action committee. Driehaus charged that being associated with abortion in this way led directly to his defeat.

“Lin’s still a Republican but he’s voting for an very bad lot of Democrats these days”, said Kaine. Former Democratic Rep. Jim Oberstar of Minnesota, who lost his bid for reelection, noted that antiabortion voters didn’t stop sending people to Congress: “They just stopped sending Democrats”. But he is wary of the party’s relationship with Planned Parenthood, whose president, Cecile Richards, spoke during prime-time Tuesday night, and described the platform as “reaching a point of irresponsibility”.

We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion-regardless of where she lives, how much money she makes, or how she is insured. The appropriations rule generally has been a consistent rider to funding bills with bipartisan support, including lawmakers who support abortion.

Despite the diversity of opinion, there is nonetheless a clear party line. The 2016 platform language on abortion torpedoes those goals.

Fast forward to the 2016 Democratic platform.

“We better elect the candidate who’s proven she can be trusted with the job”, he said.